Long Time No See
by Chiiyo86
Summary: When he least expects it, the past comes to Sam.


A/N: _Written for roque clasique's birthday comment fic meme, in answer to the prompt: "Futurefic. Sam and Dean meet one of Sam's old classmates in a grocery store in Colorado. They were good friends at Stanford, but Sam's friend has since gone on to become a very successful lawyer, while Sam and Dean are still hunting. Sam's friend invites them to dinner. They're both of them pretty scarred and beat-up (especially Dean, who, what? walks with a limp? hmm?), and feel awkward about it, but dinner turns out to be really fun and Sam and his friend re-connect and it's a happy ending. Somehow." My thanks to my faithful beta, wave obscura._

Disclaimer: _I don't own anything Supernatural related._

_---  
_

Strange how the mind works. Seven years after leaving Palo Alto in the rearview mirror of the Impala, Sam knew he was never going back. It never occurred to him that Stanford would come to him.

It happens in a bookstore and Dean will later comment on how fitting it is. You can take the student out of college, but not the college out of the student, and Sam will bite down a mean retort and try not to feel uneasy because of how insightful his brother is sometimes. And because thinking of himself as the eternal student, like frozen in the progression of his life, is a decidedly unsettling thought.

August is ending in Boulder, Colorado, and it's a beautiful day, the sun playing in golden green beams with the leaves of the trees, just enough wind to make the temperature pleasantly warm. They're coming back from a little hiking and hunting in the mountains and they're both battered and bruised, but the window of the bookshop draws Sam's attention and Dean sighs:

"Just ten minutes, Sam."

"Thanks, Mom."

"I'm serious, because I want to sleep for a week and in ten minutes I'm going back to the motel, with you or without you."

"You _wouldn't!_" Sam exclaims in mock horror and Dean shoves brutally at his shoulder.

"Move, smartass."

Sam knows the ten minutes are almost over when he feels Dean fidgeting behind him. He's tempted to ignore his brother and wait to see how long it will take for Dean to snap, but he hears someone call out his name and he starts.

"Sam?"

It's not his brother's voice. For a minute he's not sure how to answer someone who's not his brother. He looks around and only sees Dean raising an eyebrow at him. Maybe he's not the one being called, he thinks. Sam is a very common name, after all.

"Sam Winchester?"

Okay, maybe it's him.

"Yes?" he answers tentatively.

"Hey!"

He feels a hand on his shoulder and tenses. Turns and sees that the hand's owner is tall and blond, and has a crooked nose that looks eerily familiar. Blurry memories of another time raise their dusty heads from a dark corner in Sam's mind.

"Charlie? Oh my God, Charlie!"

Before he has time to say anything else Charlie grabs him in a hug, laughs and slaps his back vigorously while Sam remains too bewildered to move or say anything.

"Wow, Sam."

Charlie pushes Sam back but keeps his hands on his shoulders.

"It's been a long, long time. Wow. I mean so much happened, and… We didn't even know where you were or what you were doing!"

"Oh, you know. Here and there. Doing… stuff."

Charlie's hands on his shoulders are making him more uncomfortable by the minute, so he glances to the left as a hint to Charlie, and that's when he notices the ring.

"Oh… You're married. Congratulations!"

Charlie removes his hand from Sam's shoulder to finger his wedding ring.

"Yeah. It's been… hey, three years already. Can you believe it?"

"Hardly. I mean, you always said that you would never marry."

"I know, I know. What can I say, I was the most surprised. And what about you?" Charlie's eyes flicker to Sam's ringless hands. "Do you have someone? In your life?"

He glances at Dean, who has stepped closer to Sam in a protective stance that clearly makes him Sam's, in one way or another.

"Oh, no." Sam laughs weakly. "Dean here is my brother."

And, well, if Sam has someone in his life it's Dean, though not in the way Charlie thinks.

"Dean, this is Charlie Windup. He's a friend from Stanford."

"I figured," Dean says and nods politely at Charlie, who does the same.

Dean is holding himself stiff and Sam can feel uneasiness radiating from him in waves, knows his brother wants to get the hell out of here, and suddenly Sam finds the shop too crowded and too hot and feels like if he spends one more minute in here he's going to suffocate.

"So, um, Charlie, it was good to see you again…"

"Would you like to have dinner at home tonight?" Charlie blurts out. "Your brother is welcome, of course."

"But, uh, your wife…"

"Jenny won't mind. I'd like you to meet her, anyway."

Sam shares a look with his brother. He's torn, because he remembers how much he liked Charlie and he's happy to see him again, he is, but he's also really tired, Dean is too, and more than that he's not sure he wants to see how his own life compares with Charlie's seven years later. He's about to refuse but Dean surprises him by speaking up first:

"That would be great. What time do you want us to come?"

"Well, at eight? Yeah, eight would be good."

"Okay, we'll be there! Where do you live?"

Once Charlie is gone after giving them his address, Sam turns to his brother:

"What the hell, Dean! What happened to sleeping for a week?"

"I would never say no to a free home-cooked meal, that just wouldn't be right. And don't you want to know what happened to your friends?"

"Yes, of course…"

Does he really? What would he say to Charlie about his own life? That he lives an itinerant life with his brother, sleeps in crappy motels and eats in diners, and that they never ever stop because they just don't know how ? That his last real relationship was all blood drinking and furious self-destructive fucking, and since then his sex life has been reduced to one night stands? And what about that he hunts monsters for a living and almost destroyed the world three years ago?

"Sam, you with me?"

Is he too much of a coward to face his friend's happiness?

"Alright, we'll go. But we'll be back at the motel early because I'm really fucking tired."

"You're telling me. I'm not giving up on my plan of sleeping for a week."

He stifles a yawn, which makes Sam wants to yawn too. His heard hurts a little from exhaustion and he wonders if he's going to make it to the evening. They go back to the motel; Dean takes a nap and Sam spends his time freaking out and regretting that he didn't buy a book at the bookstore. When Dean wakes up a little before seven they looks in their duffle bags for clothes that smell clean and don't have any dubious stains, then they leave the motel and walk to Charlie's house. Not wanting to be late, Sam quickens his step until he notices that Dean is way behind him. He stops.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing," Dean snaps. "Except that your legs are too fucking long but that's nothing new."

Sam watches his brother walking to him and eyes him up and down, until he figures what is wrong. His brother is limping.

"Is it your knee? Does it hurt again?"

Dean fucked up his knee a few months ago, and has never fully recovered his old mobility, but Sam is pretty sure that this morning it wasn't bad enough to make him limp.

"Not too bad. Must be all this fucking hiking. Did I mention that I hate hiking? And mountains?"

"Yeah, Dean. Like, a hundred times today." He pauses. "Um, d'you wanna go back to the motel?"

"Jesus, no, not now that I've walked all the way through here." He stops at Sam's side. "So are we doing this or not? Or do you want to use me as an excuse?"

Sam glares at him.

"Okay, asshole, walk it off," he groans, kicking at Dean's non-injured leg. Dean curses and flips him off, but starts walking.

It's Charlie's wife who opens the door when they knock, Charlie at her back. She's all red hair and bright smiles and happy talk, leaving Sam blinking and stunned like he has been staring at the sun.

"Isn't she wonderful?" Charlie whispers to Sam as they walk to the dining room. Sam feels his throat close up when he catches the loving gleam in Charlie's eyes, but he nods his approval and smiles bravely.

"She looks great, man."

The beginning of the dinner is as awkward as Sam feared it would be. The dining room is bigger than their motel room and decorated with taste. It's screaming success and money, but Sam asks anyway because he's masochistic like that:

"So, it looks like you're doing good. Did you become a lawyer?"

"I did, and Jenny is too. That's how we met, actually, in law school. I kept borrowing her notes."

Jenny smiles again one of her sunny smiles, and exchanges a look with full of fond remembrance with her husband.

"Oh, yeah it was so annoying," she says, "because I could just tell it was a clumsy attempt to hit on me. The lost puppy strategy. Pick me up or I'll be run over by a car."

"Well, it worked, didn't it?"

"I guess you kinda grew on me."

They look like they're going to kiss and Dean looks like he's going to puke, but they stop themselves and Charlie asks:

"And you, Sam? Did you become a lawyer, after all?"

Sam's eyes widen. Did Charlie miss the way he's dressed? Not like a lawyer, that's for sure, or maybe a really sucky one. Dean smirks and Sam just knows he's going to say something sarcastic that will definitely ruin the mood, so he says quickly:

"Well, I never went back to Stanford, or to any other university so, no. I never even graduated."

"Oh. I've always thought… I mean, you loved school so much, I've always thought you didn't go back to Stanford because of…" He glances at Sam, who smiles to tell him it's okay to say her name. And it is; it's been so long, it barely even hurts anymore. "Well, because of Jess, but I thought you would try to apply somewhere else. You've always been brilliant."

"Well, I didn't." To prevent the question he knows is coming, Sam adds: "Dean and I drive across the country, and we do… odd jobs."

"What kind of jobs?"

"We help people." It's Dean, taking part to the conversation for the first time. "Mostly, we help them when the police can't or won't help."

"Oh, I see," Charlie says, though Sam doesn't really know what he can see.

They distract themselves with food after that, roasted chicken and mashed potatoes; Sam watches his brother shamelessly stuff himself and ignore Jenny and Charlie's amused looks, and it makes Sam wistfully happy, for some reason. The conversation comes back to life when hunger is satisfied, but it stays in safe territory, mostly Sam and Charlie's Stanford memories that they share with Dean and Jenny. Then Dean tells the couple some carefully chosen anecdotes from their childhood, until they're all laughing themselves sick, even Sam who wonders why the memories are so much funnier than he remembers them. Maybe it's Dean's storytelling gift, the faces he makes, the broad gestures and the spark in his green eyes. Or maybe it's time, soothing all the hurts.

It's already around midnight, but Sam doesn't want to leave, even though his eyes burn with fatigue, his head pounds, and his whole body hurts because of the bruises all over it. Dean is sleeping on the couch, his head pillowed on his folded arms, and Jenny is dozing off in an armchair, curled in on herself like a child. Sam and Charlie are sitting at the table, drinking beer in silence.

"I'm sorry," Charlie says all of a sudden.

"Uh, why?"

"About… all the questions. You know, if you were married, if you were a lawyer. It was obvious that you… you know, weren't, but I just didn't know what to say. I didn't want to make you uncomfortable."

"It's okay."

"It's just… You left, and no one knew what happened to you. I thought you were dead, for god's sake. And then you're here, and I can see that whatever happened to you, it wasn't… all good."

Sam takes a sip of his beer. _That obvious, huh?_

"We had some rough moments," he admits.

"Not that I mean that you look awful or anything," Charlie continues, and Sam realizes his friend is a little drunk. "No, you look _good,_ man, even better than you did back then."

Sam frowns, not too sure where this conversation is going. Charlie chuckles.

"Dude, I think I'm kinda drunk. Well, I can tell you, it's no big deal. It's been so long anyway."

"What are you talking about, Charlie?"

"I had a crush on you, did you know that? When we were both in college."

"Huh," is all Sam can say. The surprise is numbed by alcohol, but he finds himself trying to remember whether he ever saw Charlie with a guy.

"Not that I would ever have acted on it, Jesus, no. I mean there was Jess, but even without her… Having a hard-on for one of your best friends is no good for the peace of the mind, I can tell you that." He looks suddenly alarmed. "Don't think I'm telling you that because I wanna hook up or something. I'm very happy with Jenny. But sometimes, I have wondered how I would feel if I ever saw you again."

Sam is a little weirded out by the conversation, not necessarily because Charlie is a guy, but more because the revelation forces him to rewrite all his memories from Stanford, memories that have remained frozen in his mind and are now alive and kicking again.

"And how do you feel?" he finally asks.

Charlie smiles fondly at him.

"You're a very hot guy, Sam, there's no denying that. But you're my friend above everything. I'm glad I got to see you again. And that you're not… dead."

Sam can't help but smile too.

"I'm glad too. I'm glad you're happy," he says, surprised to find that he genuinely means it.

He thinks that Charlie is going to ask him whether he's happy too but maybe his friend has learned something about asking questions because he doesn't say anything. Sam suddenly wishes he could tell him everything, tell him about hunting, and saving people, about how that's one feeling he'll never get tired of, the feeling that he's useful, that he makes a difference even if it's not always obvious. He wants to tell him about Dean and all they've been through, separated and together, and that he believes in miracles again because that's what having his brother by his side after everything is. A miracle renewed each day.

"I'm glad," he repeats, and holds onto that feeling.


End file.
